Re: 3 rooms full

Richard, that's great advice, and a fresh approach to this guy's immense project. A couple of additional thoughts: you could double up the 1/4 CTB to get to 1/2 CTB, for perhaps a better match to the outside daylight. I would think using two open-faced units as key would give you double-shadows, unless you are blasting them through some common diffusion placed well in front of the lights.

Have you tried using the light coming in the window as you key? If you can place your talking head close enough to that light source, it should work. Add a little bounce fill, and a small backlight.

Note that, as you no doubt know, having the outside a couple of stops hot in relation to the inside looks natural.

The china-ball lighting for the boardroom is a super cheap and effective way to go. Otherwise, I'd say you'd need some banks of Kino Flos angled across the table -- Flos above the left side illuminate the right side, etc.

Having practicals on is a great, simple, cheap and highly effective way to give the room some dimension and appeal to the eye.

Rick Wise
director of photography
Oakland, CA
www.RickWiseDP.com
email: Rick@RickWiseDP.com